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Should the BBC’s online ambitions be curbed?

The chancellor has questioned the scale of the corporation’s online presence. Is he right to do so?

July 7 2015, 8:28pm, The Times

Sir, Your leader (“Imperial Overreach”, July 7) questions the scope of the BBC’s online operation, and is a legitimate contribution to the charter renewal debate. The government, however, is clearly only paying lip service to that debate. The pre-emptive decision to make the BBC take on the provision of free licence fees for the over-75s at a reported cost of £650 million (or a fifth of its annual budget) has been taken in haste and behind closed doors (report, July 6).

The previous licence fee settlement, which also cut hundreds of millions of pounds, was thrashed out in similar secretive and precipitate fashion. Once again, licence fee payers’ views have been ignored in favour of fulfilling unfunded election promises. This is no way to treat…